


Who Would Fardels Bear

by blcwriter



Series: The Native Hue of Resolution [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Booker critical, Found Family, Gen, Nile Freeman appreciation, Quynh has no patience for self indulgent bs, gratuitous Shakespeare references, i said what i said, no permanent character deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28653819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blcwriter/pseuds/blcwriter
Summary: Quynh, resurfacing.A post-canon sequel to "Perchance to Dream."
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Series: The Native Hue of Resolution [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2099922
Comments: 10
Kudos: 29





	Who Would Fardels Bear

Lucid thought was not something retained easily, when one was drowning every ten minutes for five hundred years. It had started as deaths less than every minute, but this curse of theirs meant one healed-- and apparently grew one’s lung capacity. 

(Years later, she would befuddle her scuba instructor. ‘You ran out of air five minutes ago?!?”)

Quynh fought back toward thinking as much as she could. A few years of rage, of despair, of fury-- then a few more years of determination, of concentration, of willing herself to remember who she was, who she knew, who she would be if she ever won free of this grave. It passed the time. She kicked and clawed and pushed at her coffin. She screamed and cursed and prayed to those prophets she’d met who had meant their good works and compassion. She told herself over and over again her favorite verses whilst holding her breath-- then started again when she came back to herself.

Sometimes she found something like the sleep they had once had-- when first she dreamt of Andromache, then Yusuf and Niccolo. She thought she dreamt between deaths of a man made more of misery than backbone, from his first death onward. She dreamt the death of his family-- she dreamt his cowardice in not leaving his family to find a separate peace. 

It felt simpler to concentrate her fury on one who would not accept their gift for what it was, rather than inchoate fury at a whole country of men or an entire religion-- this one man had, yes, a loss of his old life, but he spat on the gift of infinite others. What fool could not see the freedom in letting others move on? What fool let himself drag back his loved ones because he could not let go? 

Sometimes, she did not think at all-- merely raged and drowned and died, woke and repeated.

There was no time to think of what might be happening out in the world beyond what she saw through this French wastrel’s eyes, that and remember her name and her purpose.

Instead, she hoped that this was not all delusion, and that what she saw was a real glimpse of Andromache and their brothers-- she hoped it was real, that they had not gone the way of Lykon. Trapped as she was, narrowed to remembering that she must some day win free, there was no way or time to do what she and Andromache had later refined with Lykon, then their gods-crossed brothers. 

The map of the world and the blessings of writing known by soldiers and traders had meant they’d found their new kin within decades, not hundreds of years. Alas, there was no way to draw this useless Frenchman a map; her murderers had not been considerate enough to leave her ink and vellum, much less a lantern to view it thereby. 

(Two hundred years later, her coping mechanism/”messenger bag of holding” would save her and Le Livre from starving after a cave-in.)

Still, she had furious hope. The scholars who had been making inroads on metal and stone with their acids and foul-smelling brews in Paris and London had shewn that with time and weather, iron would rot-- as if Quynh had not possessed over lifetimes many fine knives and swords that time and air corrupted, first bronze, then iron, even blessed steel. As if she had not developed an eye over eons to target the weak spots and with one well-aimed arrow, kill their most recent threat. It was merely a matter of time for her coffin to rot to the point of weakness, so that her kicks and punches, pushing and rocking made something yield. The despair was in knowing that the matter of time would be hundreds of years. 

She was enraged, but determined. She was better made than the death those vile Puritans thought to wreak on a witch, whose only crime was refusing to die until others’ injustices were brought back to them.

That determination ebbed to fury when it became clear that the French sot’s misery eclipsed all sense-- his guilt and fear and determination to end himself, even if he took the others with him, had her fighting her coffin anew, screaming the ways she would kill him when she won free. 

The birth of the new one took her so by surprise that she gasped-- choked, drowned, and died in seconds, not minutes. A woman, dark-skinned like Lykon, in drab desert clothes, throat slit by a man in the dress of the central eastern steppes-- young, scared, determined. 

She kicked harder. The young one would learn none of the gifts of immortality if that Frenchman had his way. 

So frenzied did she become that it seemed more nightmare than truth to see the wound in Andromache’s side fail to heal, the panic of the coward burning through his clotted guilt so hot that even Quynh could feel his shame warming his skin. They could not lose Andromache! The newest one’s terror, and the flashes of her fighting, killing, freeing, winning-- the way the young one dreamt and re-dreamt of her killing leap from the tower-- her hope and ferocity spurred Quynh on. The young one had saved Quynh’s beloved, their brethren. Her goodness was balm in Quynh’s struggle. 

When her kicking broke through, the surprise of it choked and drowned her again, but she woke soon enough and continued her onslaught. 

She floated up, finally, free. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Be it the gods or just fortune, some fishermen found her and hauled her aboard, then brought her ashore to one of the isles in La Manche. After some days in hospital proving she could eat and care for herself, they sent in a worker to ask-- how had she come to be in the open sea? A simpler version of the truth sufficed. 

“I was stolen,” she said, and if her English was dated and her speech slow to come, they would attribute it to her being foreign or being hurt in spirit. Times might have changed, but people’s consistency in underestimating the stranger remained. Some official asked where she last lived; she had not thought so far ahead as an answer for that, and had no idea where Andromache and her fellows had lodged, as it was all new to their newest. It was not hard to break down weeping in frustration at how to find them, and keep on until the official left.

She asked for a dictionary, a Bible, a radio, and some headphones of her own, once she learned what it was called. Ignorance of English due to time-traveling could be attributed to lack of English-- less sense could be made of her ignorance of the current world, unless she wanted to be treated as simple. 

Quynh was unsimple. 

(Later, she would throw her arms around Whitman’s poems.)

She was weak enough from her ordeal that the hospital was disinclined to set her out on the streets; if the food was mere pablum, it was filling and warm. It was still strange to feel anything besides the murk and pressure of water around her. Warm air, soft clothes, and saltless, soft food was solace. She could read and sleep and listen to the world and if some nights she woke shrieking from memories of drowning, well-- gods or no gods, she would forgive herself for her recovery. Time took its payment somehow. 

Still, Andromache’s wounds proved Quynh did not have endless time, at least as to this. She was landed again, air-breathing and not water-choked. She did not want to die a hundred times in the desert before the new ones found her. It made sense to get her bearings quickly..

The island was small, so no one quizzed her overmuch on her origins, especially as Quynh learned to start weeping to make up for lack of detail. They settled her in some charity housing; between the internet, the time spent “acclimatizing” to the legalities that preoccupied the social worker they assigned, and the far more valuable time spent with the retired teacher from the Island Women’s Association, she spent as much time every day learning as she possibly could. 

It was the retired teacher who showed Quynh how to drive, how much things cost, how women these days conducted themselves, and how to research anything she wanted to know in a library or online. With so dedicated and earnest a helper, it was but a few fortnights until Quynh had sufficient context to find her way onward. That the volunteer thought that Quynh’s predicament was borne of ignorance, and so showed her how to use pepper spray, pick locks, and hotwire a car “because men never count on women being handy, my dear,” well-- she would be richly rewarded in this life, as soon after reuniting with her family as Quynh could manage. Women still would help women, it seemed. It was a relief to know that not all things were changed. 

Quynh was, she knew, not really sane-- who could be, having drowned so many times? In her past, with and without her brethren, she had raged for years at some horror and yet recovered. She was less worried about being sane than in appearing so, and therefore refrained from murdering every condescending official who visited their exotic and washed-ashore charity case. 

She learned to excuse herself if she “didn’t feel well,” then retire to bed and scream into a pillow. She learned to bicycle out to the top of an empty hill before heaving rocks and smashing anything smaller than she. She stole and learned how to manage a rifle, so much better than the muskets that had been as much risk as reward before she went under the water; she practiced her aim imagining her bullets finding a home between the eyes of the pompous priest who’d visited once, then fled in terror at her enraged shrieking.

In dreams, that misbegotten swine was now alone, which of course he deserved. His misery and drunkenness were worse, which did not surprise Quynh. Perhaps she could kill him enough to put him out of both their misery-- and in any event, if she sought him out then she could stop dreaming of him and move on to those she cared more to find. Her dreams of his now were woebegone and drunken, unending misery that Quynh wanted out of her mind.

The dreams of the new one were far to be preferred-- she, whose strength and exasperation and hopefulness were stronger than her sorrow. Through her eyes, Quynh dreamt that Andromache lived, that Niccolo and Yusuf still accompanied them. Through the new one, Quynh saw that despite sorrow and anger carving all of their faces, the young one’s laughter and newness buoyed them all through the Frenchman's betrayal. 

To someone who had not lived thousands of years, learning how a place’s money and language and technology worked would be a project of years. For Quynh, who had learned tongues that predated writing, who had learned writing when it was new, who had fought injustices that repeated themselves everywhere, across time, it was not difficult to orient herself to this new place. With Andromache mortal, time was too fleeting; she spent hours in study, impatient to go.

Three months after surfacing, Quynh asked for sufficient papers to let her relocate “home.” Since France was closer, they brought her to Cherbourg, where she promised to proceed straight to the customs-house where a member of the refugee commission was to meet her. Since it would net her sufficient papers for passage, she did so. 

It was irritating, the constant focus on papers-- on proof of origin and name, as if such things meant anything in the end. As if time and life were not change, and as if something so destructible as a mere piece of paper could nail that in place. Her coffin had been engraved with prayers that the witchfinders’ God would vanquish her evil, but water and time had washed the strength of those words and her prison away, and Quynh lived while her tormentors were dust. 

Regardless, Quynh accepted and secreted the proffered cards and documents; people always wanted to know who you were, where you had been, and whether you would be of any use in the new place you found yourself, and these would at least give some credence to her existence until she regained her family. 

(Three hundred years later, she and her fellow immortals would dance around the fire they set to burn some of their least favorite identity papers, once worldwide open borders became irreversible fact.)

In the middle of the night, she packed her scant things in the backpack she’d been given, shimmied out of the window of the immigration hostel and down the three stories to the ground, then stole a car and made her way to their cache near Rouen. The cache had all of her old things, supplemented by weapons and tokens of the new age. There was clothing and camping materiel, not to mention a variety of currencies, plus jewels, gold, and silver. She registered, but suppressed her reaction to the weather-sealed boxes and large plastic totes in which her more treasured clothing, books, and jewels were laid. There were drawings from Yusuf. Spices and herbs from Nicolo. Letters from Andromache, in one of the earlier written languages they had both learned. No one but she could have read what was written there, not unless someone had discovered at last where Punt lay and deciphered its mysteries.

(A thousand years from now, she would lead that expedition. She did not deny it was cheating, but it was still fun.)

Once supplied, including some wicked small knives likely supplied by Nicolo, she made her way to Paris. She had gleaned as much from the coward’s dreams-- but she learnt more from the young one, whose presence in Quynh’s dreams was ordered, kind, and determined. She had visited the undeserving fool in person, and her concentration in navigating a place unknown to her meant Quynh could likewise find the Frenchman's apartment. 

With all her Euros and the gains of pawning some silver, Quynh lodged not far away, then followed the man long enough to get a sense of his doings. He was truly pathetic-- he spent days and nights drinking, then stumbled, hungover, to soddenly linger at used book stalls or to slump pathetically for a morning in the Louvre, gazing upon one or another statue of Andromache as she had been. Truly, he was what the internet called a garbage fire. 

One night he was so drunk that he left the apartment open behind him-- she took the time to inspect his mailbox, then stepped over his body to inspect where he lived. Once she showed him her face, it would bring the others to her-- the new one was earnest enough in Quynh’s dreams to still minister to Le Livre. No doubt her young sister would make the connection when she dreamt through Quynh’s eyes whilst Quynh confronted the Frenchman. 

She did not intend to play the villain for long, but she would make sure that he understood what it meant to die badly, too soon to recover before being tortured again.

When he stumbled in the next afternoon, she was waiting. 

~~~~~~~~~~

It only took her brothers and sisters two days to reach them. Booker was between bathtub drownings, and Quynh recalled well enough how silent immortals could be when entering an embattled location. Having researched approximate distances based on what she dreamt of where Nile might be staying, she was ready for them. 

Booker was toweling dry when Nile kicked the door in. Quynh smiled at how small she was in person, and how large she was in presence. “Hello, Nile. I’m happy to meet you,” she said. “I mean neither you nor the rest of us any more harm.”

Booker snorted, then gave the most Gallic of shrugs at some question Yusuf’s mobile eyebrows conveyed. 

Andromache stood, pale, wary, weary, weaving in the doorway behind all the rest. Amazing, that the young ones had at last taught her to take care. Quynh could barely believe it, but everything they did was beyond belief, so she supposed it was true.

“Hello, my darling,” she greeted. She poured out coffee for them all, even Booker, then motioned to the table set with Andromache’s favored sweets, though there were enough that Yusuf and Nicolo favored as well. 

“Nile, you’ll have to tell me what kind of desserts you like.”

Their youngest looked at Booker, then back at her, rolling her eyes. “It’s carrot cake, and if we can make it through this little reunion without any more deaths or drama, I’ll teach you my Nana Ivy’s prize-winning recipe.”

Quynh stuck out her hand. “I would like that.”

They shook on it, as the Americans said, and Quynh squeezed Nile’s small, warm hand with its peculiar callouses that she supposed meant pistols or other batons she would be interested to learn. Her stomach flipped at the choice to touch someone without violence. 

“I am returned from the undiscover'd country,” she offered, taking a sip of her coffee and sitting. 

Andromache barked a disbelieving laugh. “That was the last play we saw,” she said, sounding shaky. 

“Why is it always Shakespeare?” Nile grumbled, sitting at Quynh’s left hand and tossing back the coffee without sweetener or cream. 

Andy snorted, cuffed Nile lightly, and seated herself at Quynh’s other hand. “No respect for those for whom calamity is so long a life.” Her smile twisted. “Not so much longer for me, though.”

Quynh swallowed down the grieving they could do together, alone, later. “I know,” she smiled. “But at least I’ll be here.”

(She was, or at least what they thought was the end, but that is a story for later.)

In the background, the boys were trading barbs with Booker, and he was protesting that drowning in the bathtub “wasn’t really that bad, not compared,” which had Nicolo tutting and Yusuf growling.

“Get your asses to the table, goddamnit,” Nile called, and all three men jumped, then shuffled to take the rest of the seats, Booker careful not to take the one seat furthest from her. He raised his cup to her, and she did the same. Beside her, Andromache huffed a laugh, then lowered her trembling, sweaty hand over Quynh's own. She turned her palm up, and took hold. 

Quynh could feel the first smile she’d had in years on her face. It was good to be, and to be with family again. 

(And it was, not just later, but ever after.)

**Author's Note:**

> I hadn't intended this to be a series, but Quynh had Things to Say, and I really wanted her to meet Nile.


End file.
